Pilgrim (38 page)

As I continued my walk through Chelsea, thoughts of Wilde and of Rodin inevitably led me to memories of another artist.

James McNeill Whistler had lived some twenty years ago at number 13 Tite Street and prior to that, but briefly, in the ill-fated
White House
at number 35. He now lives, to my sorrow, on Cheyne Walk at number 21. I say
to my sorrow
because this makes him my neighbour.

For all his undoubted talent—some would say genius—and for all his famous wit and dash, Whistler is a bigot—a man of mean spirit and something akin to treacherous when it comes to friendship. He took Wilde up and made a pet of him, slowly becoming paranoid because of Wilde’s increasing forays in the direction of fame. That anyone—especially a protégé—should shine more brightly, be more lionized, cut a more recognizable figure than Whistler, was unforgivable.

The press became involved by way of Whistler’s copious letters and Wilde’s equally copious and enthusiastic responses. Noting that a
contretemps of dandies
was under way, the papers encouraged it—flaunting Wilde in Whistler’s face and vice versa. It was the usual flourish of red flags and bulls—much raised dust and a lot of
hooey
. Wilde enjoyed it; Whistler did not. Whistler, after all, had gone to court
in order to defend his reputation, which he claimed had been ruined when Ruskin pilloried his painting style. Ruskin was then, of course, at the height of his critical powers and reputation. I believe all this occurred in 1877 or 1878. I don’t remember precisely. What I do remember is Ruskin’s famous claim that James McNeill Whistler had
flung a pot of paint in the public’s face!

This was not then, nor is it now, my opinion of Whistler’s paintings. I deeply admire them and even though I loathe the man, Ruskin had clearly gone too far.

The Judge’s charge to the jury, as I recall it, stated that
certain words
being used by John Ruskin,
beyond a doubt, amounted to libel.
Or some such thing. What remained for the jury was to decide whether the injury caused by these words to Whistler’s reputation was worthy of the thousand guineas he was claiming in damages—or merely worth a farthing.

Whistler won the farthing.

And financial ruin. It was in that time that he had built and lost his beloved
White House
, which ended up being occupied by—of all people—an art critic!

For this, I offer Whistler my sympathy. But when it comes to Wilde, who suffered far greater ignominy as the result of public insults, Whistler was nowhere in sight. Merely within earshot. He delighted, time and again, in what I have already described as mean-spirited, bigoted remarks at Wilde’s expense. Yes—the man can be amusing. Perhaps his most famous remark, delivered during the early stages of Whistler’s
paranoia regarding Wilde, was his response to Oscar’s having complimented him on some witticism by saying: “by God, Jimmy—I wish I’d said that.” To which Whistler had replied: “you will, Oscar. You will.”

In Paris, I happened to be present in a restaurant—though I forget which—when Whistler and his cronies were dining at a nearby table. Clearly, Oscar Wilde was the subject of some part of their conversation. The name alone produced rude sounds and loud guffaws. Fun was made of Wilde, the dandy in velvet, being made to wear prison garb.

“And where in his cell do you think he kept his lilies?”

“In the po! In the po! In the beautiful po!” someone sang, to the tune of
By the Beautiful Sea.

“And how do you mince in shackles?” asked someone else.

“Can’t imagine. Tell.”

“
Very
carefully.”

Roars of laughter.

More wine was ordered. Cigarettes were lighted. Nearby diners joined in the amusements, since Whistler and his friends were clearly making an effort to be overheard.

All I could think was:
Oscar himself would never have behaved this way.
Certainly never to someone who was down and out, as Whistler had once been.

Wilde’s public jibes at well-known friends and enemies were never vicious. They never cut to the bone—unless it was the bone of an attitude—and they certainly never addressed the subject of his victims’ private lives.

I thought:
well, something must be done in Oscar’s behalf
—
and I must do it.

I paid my bill, collected my hat and walking-stick, and taking a pitcher of rosé wine from a passing tray, I went to Whistler’s table and flung the contents in his face.

“This, for Oscar Wilde,” I said. “A genius. A gentleman. And a friend.”

Whistler, of course, recognized me. A tight, rather frightened smile appeared beneath his moustache.

“Good day,” I said. And left.

As I did so, every eye was on me. And behind my back, as I departed, I heard Whistler’s nasal voice, with its unmistakeable American drawl: “well! And still a friend of Oscar’s! My, my, my! Off now, no doubt, to visit with the great man in his flea-bag hotel, where—guess what?”

“What? What? What?” cawed the cronies.

“Oscar is writing
The Bugger’s Opera!”

This produced a cascade of laughter. I paid the
Maître d’
for the rosé wine and went my way. Oscar might even have done the same, if he had been there. He never did like rosé.

“A mere reflection, dear boy, of wine’s divine potential. A pale reflection in a tinted glass.”

Which is not a bad description of Oscar’s current reputation.

May he rest in peace.

At last.

I will close these pages tonight with a final salute to Oscar, dead now these ten hours. (Only ten? It seems
a decade. Perhaps he really “passed away” in Reading Gaol.)

At some point in the past year, he said to his brother’s widow:
I am dying beyond my means.

This was bravado.

He also wrote that
one should live as if there were no death.

This was brave. And remarkably apt, in my own case.

Emma stopped reading. The words had completely blurred. As she reached for her handkerchief, she found herself smiling. Was she destined always to be so deeply moved by the writing of her husband’s most enigmatic patient?

2

Pilgrim was debating the difference between the doves and the pigeons on his balcony and windowsills, and for the last week, having begun to eat his breakfast in the dining-room, he had been stealing bread and toast in order to feed them. At least, he thought of it as stealing. If the food was not for oneself, it should not be taken. The serving girls were somewhat puzzled by his seemingly infinite capacity for toast and bread, which Pilgrim ordered as many as three times during a single sitting. His habit was to slip the excess of these items into a wide red handkerchief kept in his pocket. This he then transported to his rooms, breaking the
pieces into crumbs which he scattered where the birds were certain to find them.

Watching his doves and pigeons (Pilgrim thought of them as his own) he would sometimes leave the windows open so that he could hear as well as see the birds as they ate.

He studied the markings on their wings and bodies and the moulding of their heads. The doves, of which there were two kinds, were obviously the prettier, though not by any means the most colourful. The pigeons, Pilgrim had always thought, were clearly the more resplendent. Their plumage ranged from various greens and blues and purples to all the shades of grey a person could imagine.

At home in Chelsea, in his garden at number 18 Cheyne Walk, he had spent endless mornings feeding his own and Forster’s birds with expensive seed. Down they had descended from the dovecote, almost as if they had been called by number—one and then the next—each with its own coloration—each with its own distinct personality—
pouting and strutting like so many Regency courtiers,
he had noted in his journal,
pushing one another aside in order to be seen to the best advantage at the ball.
Ah! Lady Pearl-and-Burgundy! Baroness Violet! Duchess Rose!
And all the males spreading their wings to show their epaulettes and decorations! Wonderful!

With all their nodding to and fro and all their whispering of one another’s names, it was indeed a kind of pigeon court—with all that such a place entailed of gossip, display and hierarchy.

The doves were entirely different. To begin with, they were slimmer, sometimes smaller and always more elegant. Also sedate. They remained, for the most part, chastely paired and did not congregate in such a crowd as the pigeons—choosing instead to
sit out the dances
on the railings, while the pigeons formed quadrilles and eights and never left the ballroom floor.

The doves, too, were more subtly coloured, shading through brown to tan and pink, sometimes with ruby eyes, sometimes not—but always blue-toed, red-footed, their feet more finely shaped than the pigeons’. The larger doves wore rings around their necks—like pets that had been collared. They were Jane Austen birds, he had decided, the Elliot and Ben-net sisters at a gathering where none of the suitors was suitable and…

They’re only birds, you raging idiot.

Pilgrim froze at the open window with broken pieces of toast in his hand.

Someone had spoken.

Who had spoken?

Whispered.

Don’t,
Pilgrim wanted to say.
Don’t do this.
But he was silent.

There must be someone in the room with him, but he knew it could not be Kessler or Doctor Jung. Jung was not due for another hour and Kessler had gone to his mother’s house to collect a pair of springtime boots.

Pilgrim glanced at the windowsill.

Only birds.

Did it matter that they were only birds?

“Why does it matter?” he said out loud.

There was no reply.

Slowly, he turned.

“Is someone there?” he asked.

Certainly no one visible.

Sometimes, voices pretended to be God. Pilgrim was well aware of this. Also, they could pretend to be the Devil. Or the Dead.

The sitting-room where Pilgrim stood and the bedroom beyond it were clearly empty of anything but furniture.

Had the furniture spoken? A chair? A table? Perhaps a lamp or a lampshade. A mirror. A picture frame. A carpet, jealous that Pilgrim had created a Regency pigeon court and a chaste society of Jane Austen doves while ignoring the needs and feelings—the emotions and desires—of their concrete selves. Their loneliness for one another, scattered and spread and separated as they were in a fixed and never-ending pattern—while life, being alive, demands variation, focus, something other than the same old place on the wall and the same old four-square space on the floor and the same dry rain of dust on all one’s surfaces, cutting off one’s view and clouding one’s countenance. To spend whole weeks unsat in. To be a drawer that is never opened or a lamp that is never lit. To be an unused cushion, never turned or plumped or held. To be a fallen pin that is never found. To be a broken pencil that is never sharpened—or a spotted piece of
glass that is never polished. To be set forever with your back to the wall and your face to the light. To be an unstruck match or an unread book. To be grime. To be dust itself or the unswept dirt from someone’s boots. To spend one’s whole existence unsaluted and unthanked. To be…

Only furniture, you maniac!

Beyond the windows, the doves and pigeons fluttered and fussed because their feeding had been interrupted.

Pilgrim sat down.

The chair sighed:
at last.

Pilgrim raised his hands to cover his face before he realized they were full of crumbs. There was toast in his eyes and toast in his hair.

Leaning forward, he fell to his knees in the middle of the floor.

“I implore you,” he whispered. “Someone save me from this moment.”

But there was only silence. All the doves and pigeons had flown away to forage or to be fed elsewhere.

When Kessler returned in his squeaky new boots, he found Pilgrim still kneeling in what appeared to be prayer.

“Mister Pilgrim? Sir?” the orderly said. “Can I help you?”

Pilgrim said nothing.

“You can’t just kneel there,” Kessler went on. “We have to get you up for Doctor Jung.”

Nothing. Wordless and still.

Twenty minutes later, Jung arrived with Anna’s music bag in hand, his smock still undone and his hair in disarray.

When Kessler had taken him aside into the bedroom to explain the situation, Jung returned alone and said to Pilgrim: “Mister Pilgrim—shall I pray with you?”

Pilgrim nodded.

Always prepared to go to whatever lengths were required to decipher a patient’s mood or quandary, Jung got down on his knees directly opposite Pilgrim.

“What are we praying for?” he asked, speaking gently and without condescension.

“Trees,” said Pilgrim.

“Trees?” Jung responded. “You mean we should pray for the trees?”

Pilgrim shook his head.

“Take me to them,” he whispered. “I must go to the trees.”

“To the trees,” Jung said. “Very well, then. Let me help you up.”

Ten minutes later, Jung and Pilgrim, loosely dressed in their spring coats, went into the garden to the east of the Clinic. Kessler followed at a discreet distance, though discretion in squeaky boots was difficult to achieve.

Pilgrim was noticeably shaky on his feet. He clung to Jung’s arm like an invalid and seemed barely able to make his way along the path.

All at once, he looked up—and doing so, fell again to his knees.

“Mister Pilgrim—Mister Pilgrim,” Jung said, bending forward to lift his patient.

But Pilgrim brushed him aside and said: “no, no—look! Don’t you see her?”

Jung could see nothing unusual.

“Her, Mister Pilgrim? Who?”

“There,” Pilgrim whispered. “There.”

And he pointed.

Jung turned and looked. Seated high above them, in the crown of a giant pine, was a kingfisher—blue and green and shining—with a fish in its beak. For a moment it gazed down at the humans on the path below, seeming to mark them one by one. Then, having gulped its catch, it gave a cry and flew away.